BOGOTA, Sept 18, 2024 (AFP) - At least two soldiers died and 26 were wounded in a bomb attack Tuesday on a military base in Colombia, the army said, blaming left-wing National Liberation Army (ELN) guerrillas who have been in off- and-on peace talks with the government.

The ELN has intensified attacks on military targets since August, when it decided not to renew a ceasefire that had been in force with army forces since 2023 as part of negotiations held fitfully since the previous year.

"In practice this is an act that closes the peace process with blood," President Gustavo Petro said of the attack, without giving details.

It took place in the town of Puerto Jordan in eastern Arauca department, on the border with Venezuela, the army wrote on the social network X.
The defense ministry said that two low-ranking soldiers died, five others were seriously injured and 21 were hurt, although the latter's lives are not in danger.

The head of the armed forces, General Luis Emilio Cardozo, said that the explosives were detonated in a dump truck.
The ELN is the biggest of the armed groups still active in Colombia since the government made peace with a much bigger Marxist rebel group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), in 2016.

The deal with FARC aimed at ending the longest-running war in the Americas, which had claimed over 200,000 lives since the 1960s.

But holdout FARC splinter groups and the ELN have refused to make peace.
Petro, Colombia's first left-wing president, vowed at his election in 2022 to bring total peace to the country by engaging the various groups in dialogue, including the ELN.

But in August, Defense Minister Ivan Velasquez said the military would resume operations against ELN after the ceasefire ran out, as the rebels opted not to renew it.

The ELN accuses the government of failing to meet the terms of agreements signed during previous rounds of peace talks.

The group is also demanding that the government remove it from its list of organized armed groups.

Colombia's military intelligence service estimates the ELN to have around 5,800 members.